Some musings on the benefits of the changing cultural consumption landscape (including the shift to streaming of music and TV).
Females are prescribed psychiatric drugs at much higher rates than men. Females also tend to be more emotional (wide generalization). Processing emotions takes time, and time spent on emotional work is time NOT spent generating revenue. Ultimately, the trend of medicating female emotion (and emotion in general) is a money-driven one.
We all hate surge pricing, but it's a great way for Uber and its drivers to capture more value. What if GrubHub, Starbucks, etc. charged customers more during peak hours in order to pay service workers better? Could we ever break the cycle of reliance on cheap labor?
What's the economic explanation behind the rise of the term "basic"? Is this a new phenomenon, or merely a quality of human nature evident due to economic and technical changes?
Would you pay $35 for a Raspberry Pi? No, not the food, it's a miniature computer! This device can be revolutionary for the 75 million Americans without internet access.
When fruit flies, it fails. Industrial agricultural practices have brought us berries in January, but at the cost of quality. Read about why harvesting heirloom varieties is important for taste, small farmers, and the environment.
It used to be that the strongest hunter had the most value in society. Today, the nerdy ideas man has the most worth. What happened?
Innovation is cyclical and inspired by other innovation. For example, this article was inspired by my purchase of innovative new ice cube trays. Read about how product variety is created, and how it can be a bad thing.
America is in trouble if the cost of Third World labor increases. As has been the tradition for all of human history, our economic success depends on the accessibility cheap and near-slave labor. How can we grow when this ends?
The rise of American affluence gave us the luxury of choice and ability to be picky about what we like. Combined with newly formed marketing and advertising industries, consumer preferences developed that made perfect substitutes an economic unicorn. (If you don't know what a perfect substitute is, no worries, read on!)
Count von Count is never wrong, because he loves numbers!
Don't be like this guy and let your money sit in the bank. Start investing with some simple tips!
Regulation in the last few years has made the stock market much less profitable, much to the chagrin of finance professionals (such as the pictured men). Is this a good or bad thing? To answer, we must decide who the stock market exists for.
How is Noble award winning economist Robert Lucas similar to the philosopher Hegel? Both recogonized that policy and theory are intrinsically rooted in their time.
When you take a hard science (mathematics) and a soft science (philosophy) and mash them together, what do you get? Economics, the hardest of the soft sciences!
Correlation does not equal causation
is a great rule of thumb.
If you always follow it,
you'll avoid looking dumb!
Anyone who has ever filled up gas (or driven by a gas station… or followed the news) can tell you that prices tend to change unpredictably. So, why...